North Abaco Member of Parliament Renardo Curry shared his fears in Parliament regarding the boat theft ring operating in Abaco. He claimed boat thefts are at an “all time high” and said it will affect the local tourism market.

MP Fears Boat Thefts at All Time High

North Abaco Member of Parliament Renardo Curry shared his fears in Parliament regarding the boat theft ring operating in Abaco. He claimed boat thefts are at an “all time high” and said it will affect the local tourism market.

As an example, he spoke about the recent theft of an NFL team owner’s boat. The boat was unsupervised for less than an hour and in that time it had been stolen.

“We had a person who has been coming to the Abacos for over 25 (or) 30 years.” Mr. Curry said, “In fact he happens to be the son of the owner of the Miami Dolphins.

“Mr Speaker, he never had a problem with this boat in the harbour. The boat values some $500,000. He was shocked to see that he left for less than an hour and it was gone. Now he is saying that he had never seen it this bad and that he is even thinking about not coming back again.”

Mr. Curry spoke about other incidents and concluded, “It seems to be a ring of them. We don’t know who they are, but we want them to know that once they are caught, do not cry for mercy. These things affect all of us in the community when people or investors start to leave then there comes job losses. So this is why this act must stop.”

Mr. Curry also pleaded with any would-be thieves, “I say to these young men, you seem to have no regard of other people’s property and deliberately seek to wreck our local economy, please cease from this senseless act of targeting our tourists or targeting anyone.”

The MP remarked that lack of enforcement has allowed human smuggling and other illicit activities to take root.